Period: The End of Menstruation? by Giovanna Chesler
About the film Period: The End of Menstruation?
As millions of women and girls take shots and pills to stop their periods, the meaning of menstruation changes. The current marketing trend in hormonal birth control (
Depo-Provera, Seasonale, Seasonique, Lybrel, Anya ), is to attract customers by promising freedom from monthly periods. For many consumers, menstrual suppression eliminates painful monthly flow, giving them more control in their lives. For others, menstrual suppression represents a frightening shift in thinking about the human body and another dangerous experiment on woman’s health.
Period: The End of Menstruation? interrogates the cultural and medical side effects of suppression before 'the curse' disappears.
Director / Producer Giovanna Chesler utilizes methods of direct cinema, cinema verite, and poetic construction to construct her 16mm film. Giovanna and her crew met with over 50 participants around the United States to understand the variety of viewpoints on this complex topic.
Period highlights these health practitioners, cultural critics, artists, activists. Several of these individuals impact the future of menstruation trends while others are directly affected by these trends. Some see menstruation as an essential element of the female body and experience. Others believe that menstruation is not necessary. One doctor extols the benefits of
Seasonale , a pill designed to allow only four bleeding episodes each year (which generated $50 million in sales in one year.) Another participant explains that hormonal suppressants can lead to loss of bone density and osteoporosis in young women. Side effects include depression, cardiac ailments, blood clots, break through bleeding and loss of libido.
Period equates the experiences and opinions of every day Americans to medical knowledge. Women and men of diverse ethnic communities, of varying sexual orientations are included in the film alongside the health practitioners and theorists.